Paramount acquires kid critic story

Lorne Michaels to produce NY Times' tale

Paramount Pictures has acquired rights to a recent New York Times article about a 12-year-old aspiring food critic who has charmed his way into posh eateries on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn will produce the feature adaptation through the Michaels Goldwyn Co.

Deal for the Nov. 17 article is the 16th movie or TV option pact in which the New York Times has participated since it empowered ICM to make such deals for articles that appear in the paper. Paramount previously acquired “Mystery on Fifth Avenue,” which J.J. Abrams is producing.

Goldwyn said the food-critic article offered a recipe for a youth-themed empowerment film. He said that the producers may secure life rights of the subject, David Fishman, who writes his critiques in a private journal and has struck up a kinship with a prominent restaurateur.